With the release of Pablo Larin’s new biopic MariaStarring Angelina Jolie, the world is once again drawn into the life of Greek-American Opera legend Maria Calus, whose artistry, ambition and separation were inseparable with their myths. The film’s premiere took place on August 29, 2024 at the 81st Venice International Film Festival and has been streaming Lionsgate Play in India since 9 May 2025.
A childhood marked by conflict
Maria Anna Cecilia Kalogeropolos was born in New York in 1923 at the Greek immigrant parents. His childhood was married to family discord and poverty. When his parents separated, his mother Maria and his sister were taken back to Athens just before World War II. Life was foggy in Greece at the time of war, but within that scenario, a remarkable voice came into existence.
Maria trained at Athens Conservatoire under Soprano Elvira de Hidalgo, who saw the cruelty not only in capacity but in their voice. She practiced her mother’s ambition and greatness, isolated, isolated, isolated, isolated, isolated, isolated. She later says that her youth was stolen by music.
A meteor
His professional begins at Athens in the 1940s, but it was in Italy that his legend began to be crystallized. By the age of 25, Maria conquered the major Italian stages, singing with an intensity that the audience had not seen in decades. At Milan’s Titro Alla Skala, he redefined the operative acting.
Maria Bell Canto Opera – long has been considered decorative and old – back in cultural prominence. In the work of Belini, Donizatti and Early Verdie, she found emotional depth. His Norma Motherhood and priest were torn between duty. His Lucia Got into madness with devastating realism. These were not just performances. They were revelations.
His voice was unusual: expansion in the range, unstable in color, both lyrical humility and capable of volcanic force. Critics sometimes called it uneven. But even those who questioned his technology, they admitted that they could not see far away.
Glamor and grit
Maria Calus sang and won. Photo Credit: Getty Images
By the 1950s, Maria had become a global celebrity. Her harsh weight loss changed her physically and visually, paired with her with ‘fashion elite’. Designers like Dyer and Biki dressed her, photographers chased her, And tabloids ate every detail of her life.
But change was not without cost. Many people believed that his voice became delicate after physical change. Others pointed to a sheer emotional toll, which corrected his performance. In any way, his career slowed down in the early 1960s.
His relationship with offstage, Greek shipping magnets, Aristotle Onasis made headlines. Maria was destroyed when she left her for Jacqueline Kennedy. Those who knew Maria said that she never recovering emotionally, although she rarely talked about it in public.
Jolie Ki Maria
In her last years, Maria moved away from the limelight, living in her Paris apartment in solitude. Friends referred to him the growing cheating (physical and emotional). He hid his pain behind deep glasses and sewn suits.
This delicate, human side is that director Pablo Larin discovered MariaAngelina Jolie starring her introspection biopic. Set perfectly in the last years of the singer’s life, the film avoids the grandeur of its career, and instead, gender on cool rituals of memory: letters, old videos, applause echoes. The depiction of Angelina informed by the months of archial research is inward and distinguished. She plays the role of Maria, not as a legend, but as a woman, who once commanded the stage, but now, wrestled with silence.
Whatever emerges is not a picture of a diva, but a woman has to face the ghosts of her former self.
Etched in a heritage sound
Maria died in 1977 at the age of 53. His ash was scattered in the Aegean Sea, not far from the land that shaped his identity. In 2023, Athens inaugurated the Maria Calus Museum, which marks the centenary with a collection of personal items, costumes, recording and letters. The museum not only reflects its artistic heritage, but also its permanent relevance to opera, theater and performance.
His recording is widely studied and sold. Even today, no one can sing soprano Toska, Norma Or La traviata Without facing comparison of Maria. But its effect is not measured only in sound. He changed the expectations of what an opera singer could be: not only an singer, but an actor, an thinker and a human on stage.
Angelle Jolie in the biopic | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Perhaps this is why Maria Calus still matters. Not because she was innocent, but because she was fearless.
Published – May 21, 2025 08:21 PM IST
